


His Sire

by quills_at_dawn



Category: Castlevania: Lords of Shadow
Genre: Blood Drinking, Blood Kink, Implied/Referenced Incest, M/M, Post-Game(s), Vampires
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-07
Updated: 2020-02-17
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:36:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22605604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quills_at_dawn/pseuds/quills_at_dawn
Summary: After the events of Lords of Shadow 2, Dracula and Alucard have a quiet moment together.Dracula's PoV
Relationships: Gabriel Belmont | Dracula/Trevor Belmont | Alucard
Comments: 39
Kudos: 64





	1. His Sire

**Author's Note:**

  * For [xantissa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/xantissa/gifts), [Quarra](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quarra/gifts).



> If you want lots of brooding vampire thoughts, this is for you. I can't rightly say what else went into this. It's a bit risqué but then again it's a vampiric father-son relationship. Enjoy! 
> 
> For xantissa, whose fic The Fall inspired me to dust this old thing off and finally post it.

* * *

**HIS SIRE**

“Are you going to kill your son… _again_?” 

The roar of the wind around us during our meteoric plunge back to earth ends in a cataclysmic crack and a hail of shattered asphalt. 

“I know you, Gabriel Belmont. Your feelings will betray you,” Satan spits at me in his own voice issuing from between Alucard’s darkened lips “You won’t kill your son to destroy me!” 

The pathetic creature has already failed and he knows it, knew it the moment the portal closed behind him and he saw me standing before him. The very situation - the very being - he waited all these long centuries to avoid. 

The wretch first sought to flee, to immolate the whole world along with himself like a new Sardanapalus, then, failing that, shielded himself with my own blood. Despite his threat, he did not use Alucard’s powers against me, Alucard’s will must have prevented it, and even if he had managed, it would have been no use. Alucard is strong but he is still only my childe and no match for his sire. No, Satan only hopes to exploit what he sees as a weakness, my love for my son, by retreating inside a vessel he thinks I will not violate. 

He is wrong. 

“You… don’t… know me… Satan!” 

He does not know me and he does not know Alucard. He does not not know as I know what Alucard would want - cannot fathom how we both yearn for the release of True Death and that this yearning has guided our every action until this moment. He does not realise that Alucard would welcome death and that the only way I can disappoint my son now is by letting the evil that is Satan survive. That he would not forgive. 

I am not Gabriel Belmont. I am the dragon, and as I rear back to drive the Vampire Killer through his heart, my son’s golden eyes are wide and bright with terror and I delight in its exquisite purity and human frailty. It is Satan’s fear, not Alucard’s, and the look of it is so alien on my son’s handsome features that it stirs not a shred of my paternal instincts. 

Satan must sense my resolve for he suddenly shifts in a last effort to slip free - a vile, oozing blackness seeping out of my son’s immaculate body with the rotten stench of burning sulphur. 

He is wrong about me but I know him so I am ready and move with him as he flows away. I have him now. 

It is over in an instant. 

“You were wrong about me.” 

The violet eyes dim and fade quickly. No desperate sacrifice, no final words, barely the voiceless venting of an impotent rage. The lifeless, soulless body lies on the steps, the dark wings outstretched, their inky darkness so deep it neither reflects nor varies, lying like twin pools of oblivion on the pale stone. 

I feel nothing for it, barely even recognition for the far weaker being I battled all those lifetimes ago, certainly not fear. A thousand years of plotting and planning, of gathering his strength — during which I slept and weakened — have come to nothing, his reappearance so short-lived that what humans are left in the city had not time to notice it. What should have been a triumphal return not even the spark of a pyrrhic victory. 

Satan, Zobek and I were bound together by our immortality. They are gone now and yet after so much time yearning for a similar release, even as I look at Satan’s remains melt into a growing, oily puddle like putrefied, fossilised matter, death has never been further from my mind. 

Meanwhile, Alucard still lies on the pavement where he fell, seeming lifeless, and the sight of him stirs nothing in me. 

He would have welcomed death but he is not dead. And even if he were, as my vampire childe he would be even easier to bring back than he was as my human son. 

After ripping my wrist open, I let the blood spill and it blooms on his cheek before a few drops trickle between his parted lips and the scent and taste of it rouses him. 

Alucard snaps awake and my arm is snared between sharp gauntlets and fangs as they pierce my skin and my flesh and he drinks, ravenous and so overtaken by his vampiric nature that he forgets himself. He is beautiful, stained with scarlet, carnal and so alive in his bloodlust. I have never let another being drink from me as he is doing and the pleasure of it burns through my body like frostbitten lightning, scorching nerves I’d forgotten I had right to their endings. 

Stung to the marrow, I wrench myself free and turn away from him. 

He staggers to his feet, gasping, still weak and unsteady, and remembers himself. 

“Father.” 

“The sun is rising,” I tell him, “It’s time to go.” 

“What happens now?” 

I dare to look once more into the Mirror that has dictated so much of my life and it glows with a flash of the future. A surprise, as always, but for the first time I find myself unmoved by it. The merest flex of my will and it shatters, the shards that we just put together again glittering like diamond dust as they drop to the ground. 

“Who knows what Fate has in store?” 

I turn into the Basilica, leaving Alucard standing on the street in the glow of the dawning day. 

From now on we will make our own choices, our own mistakes, and his first will be whether to join me. It is my preference but I will not stop him if he wants to forge his own path away from me. 

The Basilica was built on the vestiges of my throne room, of which little remains - the columns commonplace and naked, stripped of the gilded caryatids that held up the soaring vaulted ceiling that is also gone, replaced by a plainer, lower one. Only the winged and crowned statue that hung over my throne has subsisted, pinned above the altar, oversized and suffering, weeping now at being trapped in this low, narrow room of rough-hewn stone scaled down to mortal proportions. 

Alucard’s metallic footsteps bounced around the cold walls. 

Even this Basilica built by Man to the glory of the One God is drenched in the castle’s power - my power. It is such that it has been steadily taking over the city, now as much overrun by the castle’s minions as by Satan’s and all but abandoned by men. 

I will take this city back. This is my home and will be for as long as I choose to exist. Men may return to it if they wish but on my terms. Nevermore will I give up what is mine. 

But for now I want to take my childe somewhere safe and quiet so he can recover. And we need some time together, to get to know each other and become father and son, to say the things that have been left unsaid for generations. Once he is calm and rested I will let him decide if he still wants the True Death we promised each other. 

We must go back to the Castle, my powers are strongest there, it will help him, but even here in the city the stench of the castle’s evil blood wafts through the air and I mentally probe the different areas of my domain to find where its hold is weakest. It is strongest in that place and weakest far to the north. 

I glance at Alucard. 

“Overlook Tower.” 

He nods. 

“The Guest House. I cleared it not long ago.” 

Once we’ve slipped into the Castle’s realm, Alucard revives one of the desiccated Navigators and I fix it in life. There is no harm in restoring the Castle, it will help calm its anguish. Despite the pockets of cursed blood that still pollute it, it is already less hostile. 

Coming out into the open from the Navigator, I close my eyes a moment, savouring the cold, clean air, almost completely free of the castle’s corrupt Blood. It would be. This, after all, is where the young Trevor of my mind took up residence and his influence was strongest here. Here, too, where I defeated my own inner darkness. 

I see Alucard’s gaze go to the Horn of Bromios before meeting mine. Suddenly he’s no longer a stranger, I feel as though we’ve lived a hundred lifetimes together. 

“Come, son.” 

The Greenhouse is visible from the walkway, perched on its cliff, overgrown with boughs of perpetual autumn, floating on the many cascades that fall away from it. 

When we arrive at the central hall, my eyes seek out the now familiar sight of my young son and his table of toys but of course he’s not there. I will never see him - or Marie - ever again, I know this. Marie will forever weigh on my conscience but she is long gone, as dead as Carmilla is, and even in this castle of my own making, over which I have such power, she will never reappear. Nor will the child Trevor, who just hours ago used the Horn of Bromios to summon me. A child who never knew Marie, never met her, a child the same age Simon would have been when his father left never to return, wearing a vest the same shade as the coat his father wore during our one, our only, our fatal encounter. A child with soft golden eyes instead of the clear viridian ones I watched the light of life die in. 

The passage to the Guest House is blocked and we pause for Alucard to reestablish it. 

The Greenhouse is just visible through the archway on my left. I must go there later to pay my respects and to appease the spirits of whatever Gods may rest there. Opposite, the bright doorway to the Theatre also beckons. I will go there too and see what has become of the old Toy Maker, the only being to have survived his possession by the Blood. The only one who truly tried to help me. 

I set the restored doorway in place and we make our way up the winding path. The moon has always been largest here and tonight it could swallow the universe. Bathed in its light, Alucard glows like a spirit or some other ethereal being made of pure energy, and only the armour anchors him in physicality. 

Overlook Tower, so far up in the cold mountains, was never appropriated by the city’s inhabitants, and this is even truer of the Guest House that lies in its northernmost reach under a blanket of eternal snows, behind a rocky mountain wall, beyond an abyss whose long walkway is so hazardous even the harpies do not venture out here. It is one of the remotest, most inaccessible parts of the castle. 

The cursed blood is not as virulent as it was and the threats and whisperings from it have ceased but a few infected dungeon minions are scattered on our route and Alucard dispatches them efficiently, feeding off them as he does so. He does this to serve me, I know, but also because he’s still hungry. 

My childe is a far more disciplined fighter than when we first met as vampires, the formal training he showed as Trevor now obvious in the cold precision of Alucard‘ as every move, but there is an almost gleeful savagery in it that I had not expected from my idealistic, ascetic son. He is fast and agile and moves like a gale, barely pausing to swallow down a spurt of blood or lick a stripe of it from his sword. The bloodlust of battle evidently appeals to the dark side of his nature. 

The Guest House’s many turrets and the pennants that stream from them come into sight, stark against the ever-growing moon. The Toy Maker’s traps sit between one bright, gaudy room and the next, and as Alucard shifts back into his human form after triggering a mechanism as a spectral wolf, he shivers. 

The white wolf was soft and warm. The Castle is beautiful but it is made in my image and most of it is cold and hard. 

“You will need a bed and blankets. Some furs,” I murmur, more for the Castle’s benefit than his. 

Alucard nods absently, staring at the “No Wolves Allowed” sign in the lift. 

“The Castle does not like me,” he says in answer to my unspoken query. 

No, it wouldn’t. After all, the child Trevor was merely the conflated manifestation of Alucard’s telepathic wish to help and guide me, shaped and animated by both our minds. The Castle tried to deal with the envoy it had in its hands but it knows my heart and must have known from the first who the principal was. 

When we enter the room on the last floor, overlooking the circular atrium, we find a crescent-shaped mattress with a raised edge sunk into the floor before the fireplace - a dog bed. Beside it are stacks of blankets and furs, along with a single low armchair and a side table. The Castle has obeyed my wishes but in the meanest way possible. I have a bed of my own in a room of my own in a different part of the Castle. No doubt it expects me to return there. 

Alucard exterminated every last being in the building on our way here and everything is still and quiet, as though the universe itself were holding its breath for the sake of my peace. Our peace. 

He turns to me and stares, seeming at a loss now that our primary objective has been achieved and we are sheltered and alone together. 

From its niche in the wall, the fire throws its dancing light onto the walls hung with damask and the numberless silk pillows piled like gleaming jewels into the room’s alcoves and corners. As I settle into the armchair, I wave a dozen of them over to the bed. With another wave I light the hanging lanterns that line the ceiling. 

Alucard begins to divest himself of the armour that marked him as Zobek’s lieutenant. 

“Will you keep it?” 

Alucard holds up the helmet and looks into its eyes. 

“I think so. I probably won’t use it much but I like it. And it reminds me…” 

Of our pact. Of how much we accomplished together. Of our victory over Zobek and Satan. 

“It is a handsome trophy.” 

He has to remove it piece by piece, trapped in its physicality. It is a valuable thing, forged by Zobek from rare materials he brought back from the Abyss, a combination of Zobek’s powers and Satan’s, and he cannot will it away as he could something of his own creation. 

He cannot, but I can. I took both their powers when I vanquished them, and though the armour suits him, I cannot deny I prefer him without it. 

Another lazy wave and the whole set materialises in an alcove, like any other of the many that line the Castle walls. 

Alucard looks at it in surprise, naked and pale as moonlight in the room’s penumbra. My son has always been lean and slender, but divested of the armour and without his gauntlets, greaves and the other voluminous pieces that make up his usual, complicated garb, he looks vulnerable, almost frail, despite being taller than even I am. 

A blue haze starts to form about him as he prepares to clothe himself. 

“Wait. Let me look at you.” 

He comes over, shy but obedient, and settles at a respectful distance, but I motion for him to come closer until he’s kneeling before me, between my knees. 

I remember his human visage. Its lineaments are still there if one knows to look for them, but pale, deathly pale, nothing remains of the original dark colouring that so resembled mine. 

He has marvellous eyes. Eyes the colour of the summer sun. The same eyes as the child, Trevor, and the White Wolf, but for the deep shadows around them. 

Eyes that had never shown fear until tonight when they revealed Satan’s, his time on Earth less than the blink of an eye, half of it spent inside my son’s body, wrapped in my own blood. He should have perished from the shame of it. Alucard would have. 

The golden eyes are calm and trusting but they are also less bright than I’m used to. My poor childe has spread himself thin. He must have barely fed while acting as Zobek’s lieutenant and he has been guiding me throughout, in this world and the other and even between them. That his colouring is stark and his skin cracked as if parched is nothing new, but there are fluctuations in his energy I do not like. 

I reach out to curl a hand around the long neck and he is stone cold to the touch. A flick of my wrist topples the blankets and furs onto him. 

“You are still weak.” 

“I will recover.” 

I rub a thumb along the length of his neck, letting the point of a long nail trail along it, feeling his skin prickle up beneath my hand in time with a suppressed shiver. 

“I would like to be sure.” 

He nods and is still as marble as I gather up his masses of curling hair, smooth as brushed silk and so light it moves and slips like censer smoke, pushing it aside to expose his long neck. The line of it is so pure and perfect, as the rest of him is. 

My beautiful childe. 

The smell of something alien on him becomes even stronger as I lean in to brush my lips against his flesh, still so smooth even as it tingles under my touch and my breath that I hesitate to mar it. Eventually I rake my teeth along the pale skin lightly, just enough to scratch it so that a few beads of blood well up for me to collect with my tongue. A slight aftertaste like bile lurks behind the explosion of coppery sweetness. 

I can’t help a snarl. 

“I can still taste him on you!” 

Alucard glances up at my bared fangs apprehensively and a look of shame momentarily creases his delicate features. 

My blood is strong in him and yet I can taste how weakened he is by the outlay of energy he’s had to make while also fasting, by the damage I inflicted on his body during my battle with Satan, and the more insidious defilement caused by Satan's possession. It will fade and Alucard will mend. He’s my son, after all, one I sired not just once but twice. 

Alucard still watches me, loose tendrils of hair floating on the flaring heat of my blistering rage. 

The thought of it, of my son, of his blood, of my blood in him, poisoned and polluted by that creature, roils and roars like wildfire in my veins and I want to sink my teeth into him to drink and drain him until I’ve drawn the taint out. 

But Alucard is too weakened as it is and I so instead I hold my wrist out to him. 

His eyes close in a slow blink as he tries to resist, swaying slightly in hunger as I force more heat through my body to tempt him. 

Still his determination holds and so I run a nail along the artery, slicing it open neatly, the scent of my blood released so strong it becomes a taste in the air. 

Now he cannot hold back and the rasp of his tongue as he laps up the free-flowing blood in long strokes sends a searing heat slithering through my veins until it coils low in the pit of my stomach, waiting, glowing like an ember waiting to flare. And flare it does when Alucard, after gathering up the last drop with the sharp tip of his tongue, sinks his fangs into me, white-hot needle-pricks of pleasure-pain that pierce first skin, then flesh, as they sink in too deeply, scraping bone, as Alucard misjudges his strength in hunger. 

“Slowly, Alucard. I’m your sire, not a dungeon minion.” 

He looks up, contrite, his mouth and chin bright with my lifeblood. 

“Go on, drink your fill.” 

This time I’m prepared for it and in the privacy of this shrouded room I can give in to the gratification of feeding my childe as he sucks greedily, his tongue probing the open wound, making keening sounds of frustration when the well-spring does not replenish as quickly as he would like. 

He leans over one of my knees, bowed covetously over my arm and I lay my free hand on his head, relishing the sparks of pleasure that shoot right to my core. 

I was always a creature of the senses. In the absolute it should have been held against me but the Brotherhood couldn’t afford to lose so strong a fighter so they overlooked it, pretended to not see how much I enjoyed the lash of the whip, the feel of the grip in my hand as I flicked, the slack of the length before I brought it tautly back under control, the impossible tension in every chain link when I pulled on them with all my might, the exquisite crack of bone and tear of flesh rent by the flail-head. 

My relationship with the Castle is complicated but I have always taken pleasure in its beauty and helped myself freely to the charms of certain of its inhabitants - succubi and incubi especially. But this, this with Alucard is a fresh pleasure all its own. 

I can sense everything in him crying out for my blood, his weakened body, his vampire consciousness, his very cells, despite the many dungeon minions he gorged himself on on the way here - a sign of just how starved he is. He is half drunk on my blood, which is more potent still than the human blood he refuses to drink. It will help him recover but weaning himself off it may be painful. 

“That’s enough for now.” 

“Thank you, father.” 

Dazed and embarrassed. No doubt he thinks it as improper to delight in my blood as it is to enjoy that of humans. 

He lays his head on my knee and tidies up the wound with soft, kittenish licks, either sated or overwhelmed. 

Soon he nods off into sleep and I ease him onto the mattress. He is so pale against the jewel-toned silks and the lanterns overhead cast a patchwork of colour onto his skin like stained glass. 

He looks so young, the tension in his brow and the corners of his mouth melted away by sleep. 

The human Trevor was young when he died and Alucard looks even younger. Despite the power of my blood in him, his long turning and years of self-deprivation have left him immature as a vampire. 

He sleeps the easy sleep of a child innocent of everything. 

Perhaps that is why these surroundings so suit him. 

The Guest House, as all the places under the Toy Maker’s dominion, is warm and welcoming. The floors here are wood parquet instead of marble intarsio, the ceilings low, the rooms an intimate size. The heavy velvet drapes muffle the whistle of the wind blasting past the windows and block out the cold, allowing the crackle and warmth of the fires to fill the room, heightening the sense of being comfortable inside a silk cocoon. Even the flicker of flamelight on polished brass is playful as a visual chattering and nothing like the cold gleam of old bronze in the darkness. 

These surroundings suit Alucard. They suit his cool pallor, they match the quilted fabric of his deep sea-green coat and his golden eyes. Even that lieutenant’s armour looks like it belongs in its alcove. 

I have always given the Toy Maker free reign and this part of the Castle is the least under my influence. I know from the boy puppet in the old man’s Theatre that Alucard will be safe here. It is the best place for him to spend the next few days recovering while I finish clearing the cursed blood from the rest of the Castle and bring it back under my control. 

The Castle is a reflection of my fractured mind and the warring instincts within it. The determination that pushed Gabriel through trial after trial, that feeds off hatred and wrath, and that wants to _survive_ despite everything, pitted against the longing to be reunited with Marie. And our son. 

A sound at the door and when I look I see a trembling dungeon minion holding a tray on which are my favourite chalice and a decanter of fresh blood. 

The minion’s eyes aren’t red. The Cursed Blood has been weakening ever since I defeated my inner darkness and it possesses fewer and fewer of the Castle’s inhabitants. I can sense the presence of others in further parts of the Guest House, especially in the ballroom, no doubt some of the braver, more repentant ones. They fear my wrath and have sent the blood - and possibly this minion - as a peace offering. 

Dismissed without a word, the minion beats a hasty retreat towards the door, backing away from me. I’ll deal with them all later. 

For now I help myself to some of the blood. 

So fresh it is still warm. And very rich. Taken from one of the larger variety of Brotherhood soldier. It flows through me and sets all my nerve-endings singing. Just what Alucard needs but I expect he will refuse it on principle. 

My gaze wanders back to the fireplace to admire the long, elegant lines of Alucard’s body, tangled in the blankets and laid out on the large red and purple pillows whose lustrous, dark hues make the pale contours stand out so starkly, underlining their androgynous perfection. 

I have wanted this for so long. Ever since I held my dying son in my arms, I have longed to have him by my side and here he is. Alucard came to me of his own accord and now I want him to stay of his own volition too. 

In its dying prophecy, the Mirror showed me Alucard trying to give me True Death with the Vampire Killer. And failing. 

I should not be surprised. 

The human Gabriel was staggered and nearly ripped apart by the absorption of each new ability, but I have become so saturated with power that it constantly overflows and when I soaked up Zobek’s and Satan’s powers mere hours ago I barely felt a flush of heat. 

Perhaps I have long outpowered the Vampire Killer, or perhaps the trickles of power I stole from Zobek and Satan mere hours ago finally tipped the scales, but now even Gandolfi’s prized creation is no longer powerful enough to kill the Prince of Darkness. 

Making the Dragon cost three Lords of Shadow and three Lords of Light, the Prince of Hell, the sacrificed life of an Old God, all the blood of a higher vampire, the annihilation of the Forgotten One, the death of my true love then my son’s by my own hand, and many things besides. It can never be unmade by anything forged by mere mortal hands. 

Gandalfi’s combat cross would, however, be powerful enough to release Alucard from his cursed existence. 

In the Mirror’s vision, Alucard chose to stay with me when he understood that I was still trapped in this existence. 

That fool, Satan, could not imagine how much Alucard yearned for death. True death. The idealist in him wanted to eradicate the two greatest sources of evil, Satan and Zobek, from this earth but he also wanted to recover the Combat Cross, for his own sake as much as my own. He’s not as powerful as I am but the immortality that runs in his blood, my blood, is just as tenacious as mine. He longed for true death at least as much as I. Perhaps more. After all, he did not make a long descent into evil as I did, he awoke to it and has never accepted it. 

No, Satan could not see how much Alucard would have welcomed death.

I owe Alucard death. I owe him a way out of this life I forced on him, should he want it. I have redeemed myself in my own heart by doing away with evil, redeemed myself in the eyes of my human son whom I wronged by turning against his will by recovering the Combat Cross, and perhaps even in the eyes of my vampire childe whom I will chose over eternal peace after centuries of torment. 

I owe him a life too. A life with a loved one to live it with to make up for the one that was taken from him by the Brotherhood and I. 

Did Alucard ever have a flicker of regret for what might have been, for what we could now have? Did he spend the many centuries he had to live out alone longing for a life shared with me while I slept - while my mind, fractured as it was, continued to yearn for a life with him? 

Even before I had looked into the Mirror I had already decided, as I had promised young Trevor, to choose my family. I could kill him and give him the eternal peace we both long for but the childe deserves a life before death. He was so young when he died. Is still so young. 

Marie chose her fate. She chose it for herself and for Trevor and I. Trevor was always cheated by fate but now I will ensure, at long last, that Alucard will have the chance to choose his own, according to his own wishes and not his sense of duty. 

When I drift back from my thoughts, Alucard is awake and sitting cross-legged in a nest of blankets and furs, studying his hands and arms by the light of the fire. 

He turns to me, most of his face cast in shadow like a new moon but his eyes are bright as twin suns. 

“The cracks… are healing,” he murmurs. 

“How do you feel?” 

“Stronger. Thank you, father.” 

When I sit up to observe him more closely, he rearranges the furs in his lap self-consciously but says nothing when I slip from the chair to join him on the mattress, dismissing my clothes. 

When I touch the side of his neck he does not pull away, on the contrary, and so I draw him onto my chest. When I force a blast of heat through my body to warm him, he presses himself closer. 

I’ve known that he craves contact since we stood together on the battlefield and he put his hand on my shoulder all those centuries ago then leant into the touch until his forehead rested against mine. When he first spoke the word “father” with affection and forgiveness in his voice. 

I rub my thumb over his neck again and brush aside his hair, and he trembles, waiting. This time I breathe over the smooth skin before licking it gently to sooth him before putting my teeth to him. He startles when my teeth break skin and so I hold him more tightly so he doesn’t hurt himself. His blood wells up, more of it than is necessary but I cannot help myself. 

Yes, much better. He’s getting stronger and the filth Satan left inside him is fading, as are the dark fissures in his pale skin. 

I lap at the pinprick wounds, relishing the minute quivers that thrill through him, until they stop bleeding, then pull away to look down at him. 

After centuries of near fasting and given how slowly he turned, Alucard may never regain his human appearance the way I kept mine, but drinking my blood is allowing his body to regenerate and evolve in ways it has never done before. 

Alucard’s calm, liquid eyes are on me as I train my gaze over him and my reflection in them is that of a golden idol. 

I summon the chalice and take a long swallow of blood, the cooling surge of power that comes with it helps calm me. 

“Here.” 

He sniffs the blood in the goblet and turns away slightly, looking dissatisfied. 

“Very well. Drink.” 

A hesitation before he accepts the wrist, holding it reverently as he settles down to drink. He too breathes in deep before kissing the sensitive skin lightly, flicking the tip of his tongue over it before carestakingly positioning his sharp little teeth over the artery. 

The earlier wound has healed but I’ve kept a mental bruise there and the growing pressure of Alucard’s fangs against the skin, pushing until they break through, the sensation of them sinking into the soft flesh, is even more exquisite than last time. 

This time he is more careful and goes no deeper than is needed to keep the blood flowing as he laps and suckles at the wound. There’s a pleasant numbness beneath the skin and the flow of blood leaving me tugs at every sensitive nerve ending in my body, every extremity, to even the roots of my hair. 

Sinking my fingers into his hair, I card them through the silken strands. This too is a new pleasure - an infinite, subtle pleasure. 

I should let him drink from me daily, it would keep him strong and healthy despite his abstaining from human blood. I have no such qualms and I’m already strong enough to spare the blood. 

The pressure of Alucard’s fangs eases and he lays his head down on my arm, gentle lips and the occasional lick soothing the fresh wound. 

I can’t help but smile when he pulls away and I see a small smear of blood on his bottom lip. 

“You’ve spilt a little.” 

Alucard hums sleepily, once again a little drunk on my potent blood. He makes no effort to clean himself up so I lean down to mouth the smear away. 

Alucard continues to look up at me, eyes glowing contentedly as I cradle him against me. 

“Father, why am I - why are we - not dead?” 

“Is that still what you want?” 

He hesitates. He should still want it, just as I should have, after lusting for it for centuries. However, everything in his behaviour so far betrays how little he is impatient for death. 

As we watch the fire’s dancing flames, I bury my nose in Alucard’s hair and breathe in his clean scent, imprinting it on my mind. 

“I was sorry about Victor,” he finally murmurs against my skin, “But perhaps it’s better that way. The Belmonts are a cursed bloodline. Perhaps you were right, all those years ago, when you said you wanted to end it.” 

The family Trevor lost has weighed on my mind too. 

“Did you watch them?” 

“For a time. Simon, and his children and grandchildren. And then, every few decades. But it was painful. They’re so stubborn, getting tangled up in all of the Brotherhood’s stupidities. There was nothing I could do to save them.” 

There is a deep sadness in him and I’m reminded that while I slept, he lived. Mine is a cursed lineage of sons growing up without their fathers and yet condemned to fight their battles. And lose them. 

“I’m sorry you were alone for so long.” 

“It was my doing. It was what I asked of you.” 

“You must have been lonely, all these centuries. You have had to go without so many things.” 

A soft silence, the space of a slow heartbeat. 

“So did you,” Alucard finally murmurs, “I read your book, father. There were so many things I didn’t know. I understand now.” 

I’ve stiffened and he’s watching me, looking deep into my eyes, trying to gauge my reaction in them. 

“When?” 

“When I brought you to the Castle with the Crissaegrim through your heart. I’m sorry, father, I should have asked but...” 

But he had just put me in a centuries-long sleep and he had questions, so many questions, that should have been answered ages ago, before he came with Simon to kill me, before I killed him without knowing who he was. 

Everything is in that book. Everything I am, everything I’ve done. Every act, every betrayal, every lie, every shred of humanity I had to shed. He knows me now and looking into his soft eyes I feel an unfamiliar melting warmth seeping out from within my bones. 

This is why his attitude has so changed. It is not the redeeming act of killing Zobek and Satan nor the acquisition of the Vampire Killer that have rehabilitated me in his eyes. It was this. 

He will have seen in it how much we were both deceived and manipulated. Zobek, the Brotherhood, Pan and even Marie, with good intentions or bad, they all manipulated us with their lies and half-truths. And yet, for all that we have hated each other, and fought, and even tried to kill each other, Alucard and I have never deceived one another. 

Alucard could have when he devised this elaborate plot to defeat Zobek and Satan. I was always fated to defeat them and rid the world of evil, I would have done it one way or the other. But Alucard chose to come to me in candour, not to bribe me with promises of redemption or threats of humiliation, but in the name of something that only the two of us can understand. True Death. Eternal Peace. 

I owe the world nothing, but I did owe him this. 

This is why it feels right to have him in the Castle. 

“You said you were here, in the Guest House, not long ago?” 

“Yes, just after retrieving the Crissaegrim.” 

After pulling it out of my heart, mere hours before I woke. 

“Why?” 

“Mother brought me.” 

At the mention of Marie my heart misses a beat. I still love her but I do not trust her. Especially not with Alucard. I have no doubt my redemption was more important to her than Alucard’s existence. 

There is a reluctance in his manner that sends all my nerves tingling as tendrils of my power begin to seep out. 

“Why?” 

“The castle had hidden the Void Relic here. I retrieved it and replaced it in the Void Room.” 

The fire is almost blown out as my anger flares up and I fight to quell it. 

“The castle took my sword?” 

“Yes, to hinder you.” 

My blood uncoils within me. There is something he’s not telling me. 

“And the Chaos Relic?” 

“That too.” 

“Where?” 

“Near Carmilla’s wing.” 

That nonchalant tone doesn’t fool me for a second. I know exactly where he means. 

A place as far from this part of the domain as is possible, just as remote but in a different way. A place I thought I had sealed off. 

“The Forbidden Wing.” 

“It was nothing.” 

A poor lie. 

Even now the Blood’s evil is strongest there, as is my power but in a way I cannot control. I have tried to purify that place, I have tried to destroy it, to raze it to the ground, to lock it up, to purge it with fire and to flood it, to forget it, but when I first stayed there my powers were so amplified by disconsolate grief that they created something that even my present powers, in all their immensity, cannot undo. 

If anything could kill Alucard it would be the raw, malefic and malevolent, despairing evil that haunts that place, resonating throughout its halls with my anguished voice. And this even without the Blood’s insidious influence. 

The fire has all but died out, asphyxiated by my fury, and the very walls seemed to bow out as the Castle waits in breathless terror to see if I will act on the impulse to level it all. 

Only Alucard is unafraid, Alucard whose eyes have softened to amber, the same melting look they had all those centuries ago when he said his last words to me. He has seen through young Trevor’s eyes. He knows nothing and nobody can harm him now he has me to protect him. 

He’s read the Book, he’s been to the Forbidden Wing, he has seen his mother’s name written in blood on its marble floors and walls, heard it ring out with the sound of my desperation. He knows now that he was not alone in feeling what he did when he woke to this accursed existence. He has seen into my soul. 

“I’m sorry it took me so long to understand, father.” 

“No, childe, it is I who must apologise for what I did to you.” 

“You were trying to save your son. I did the same for Simon. I understand everything now.” 

“Son…” 

All that is hard and brittle in his character Alucard has from me, this is what he has of Marie speaking. He is her child too though there is no outward sign of it. He has my features, my nose, my mouth, my eyes, my cheekbones, my curling hair, none of Marie’s gentle lines, as if the Universe, from the first, had wanted to stamp him with my seal, mark him unmistakably, irrevocably, fatally, as my son. 

Yes, made in my image, but brought to sharp, exquisite delicacy — even more so since he was turned. His cheekbones are higher and sharper than mine, his jaw more slender, his chin more pointed, his nose straighter. An otherworldly creature with eyes of liquid sunlight and hair like moonlit tendrils of mist dancing over a frozen lake. My fresh blood in him has also given his flesh a new transparency, like fine clay tempered with bone ash. 

I could pass for human and walk amongst the living as Zobek did but not Alucard. The figure is human but no living, breathing creature of God ever looked so ethereal as my glorious childe does. And yet he did walk the earth and found a place there. The walls of the City are covered in thanks and references to the White Wolf. 

“Do you still want True Death?” 

He blinks, his expression creases in pain and he shakes his head, his long fingers curling more tightly around my arm. 

“I was still angry then. I still hated myself. I still thought that I - that you and I - could only be evil. But I was wrong.” 

No. I have many faults - I am stubborn, ruthless, mercurial, vengeful - but I have never been intently and maliciously evil-bent as Zobek and Satan were. That is why Alucard trusts me over them. My son, who never did an evil thing in either of his lives. 

The Lord of the Lycans’ words echo in my mind. He was the first to warn me and in the moment when Marie ascended without me I believed that she had taken all that was good in me with her. 

But Alucard is the true light to my shadow. 

“We are not evil by nature,” I agree, “And you never have been.” 

He nods and reaches out to wind a finger in my hair. 

“We could live on, together, and find a place for ourselves? At least for a while.” 

I was cheated of so much. Cheated out of a family, out of my humanity, and even of the oblivion of death. I thought I had lost everything. 

Instead, I have my glorious childe, Alucard, more closely bound to me by this cursed immortality than we are by blood. This was no place for the child Trevor but I will make it the perfect home for my heir. 

“We will keep the Vampire Killer safe. If you ever decide you want peace, I will give it to you myself.” 

“But what about you? We agreed-.”

I shake my head. 

“It was I who cursed you with this existence. I must be the one to remove it. Promise me, son.” 

He nods then straightens to press his forehead against mine, his arms creeping around my neck a moment before settling back down. 

“Father, what did the Mirror of Fate show?” 

“Does it matter?” 

“No,” he says after a moment’s consideration, “I have made my decision. But I would like to know.” 

I brush away a few pale curling strands and press a kiss onto his forehead. 

“Just this. That we both chose family.” 

He looks up at me with glowing eyes then his mouth curves into a smile. 

“The Mirror of Fate is broken, Alucard. We will put the shattered pieces of our Fate back together as we wish to.” 

Alucard’s eyes cool to gold and he lays his head against my shoulder. 

“Yes, father.” 


	2. His Childe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Days after the battle with Satan, Alucard's condition is improving.
> 
> Alucard's PoV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaand I couldn't stop thinking about vampires so now there's a sequel. Enjoy!

* * *

**HIS CHILDE**

The colourful articulated puppets that fill the Ballroom dance around on their strings, jabbing at me with the toy knives they hold. 

No threat at all and even the sheer number of them doesn’t make this much of a challenge and I’m more waltzing than battling my way from one side of the room to the other. 

Father asked the Toy Maker to power them for me so I could keep up my training. He spends hours away at the Castle each day, clearing it of corrupted demons and reestablishing control over it. His memories continue to return and become clearer, and with them his powers grow stronger. 

Every day when he returns we track his progress in the Map Room, where he challenges me to spot what has changed on the elaborate representation of the Castle. 

I could help him but Father prefers me to stay here, not because he thinks I’m not strong enough, but because he’s still upset by the thought that the Castle tried to harm me and because he doesn’t want that rivalry to fester. 

A final slash and the last of the puppets falls to the ground. 

As my fighting focus fades, I become aware of hostile presences and when I turn I find a handful of Dishonoured Vampires watching me from the shadows, their eyes glowing bright red. 

The castle is still uncertain about me, that is why the demons still possessed converge here, seeking me out. 

“An ambush?” I smile, taking up my fighting stance again, “Father will be so disappointed in you.” 

“We serve him! _You_ dishonour him with your presence!” 

They all engage me at once and this time I feel the thrill of danger. 

The first of the demons falls before the surprise of my attack has hit him. 

Satan’s taint is a lingering stiffness, like rust in a mechanism, and dampens the light and shadow magic that animate the Crissaegrim. But after over half a millenium without it, I still delight in the use of my sword. I love the feel of the wrapped grip as I shift my hold on it, the elegant curve of the blade and the particular balance of it as it swings. 

What I’ve temporarily lost in magical abilities has been made up for by Father’s blood. All the intrinsic powers I have as a vampire are stronger. My movements are more fluid, my body is less tied to its physical form. 

The second demon parries a split-instant too late and falls. 

I can feel my new self as I spin and duck out of the way of the demons’ attacks. I’m faster, more agile, unshackled from constraints of my physical form, now just a familiar wrapper for my core energy. My body goes exactly where I want it to, unconcerned about reach or length of stride, it simply follows where my mind leads. 

The Crissaegrim slashes the throat of the next vampire and I catch some of the blood that spurts forth, more out of habit than anything else. Now that I feed from Father, the low, constant, gnawing hunger I taught myself to ignore is gone. The weight of existence is gone. 

Another lunge, another side-step, a twist and I’m behind the next one and, carried by momentum, the Crissaegrim slipping easily between his ribs, piercing his pumping heart. 

There is no harm in killing the demons. Even though the Cursed Blood is receding, Father has confirmed that the weaker demons already possessed are unable to throw it off. Only the Toy Maker survived it. 

The demons are born of the castle, will return to it, and be reborn from it, cleansed. And Father believes that establishing my authority now will help going forward. 

The last one falls and I lick its blood from the Crissaegrim’s long blade. Beneath the Curse’s bile-bitter anger, the Castle’s own waft of oxidation and ancient stone, I can taste the heat of my father’s power. Faint, but now that I’ve drunk from him I could recognise it anywhere. His essence is everywhere, in everything, infused into every last drop and speck of his domain. 

“It would be more wholesome for you to drink from the Brotherhood soldiers,” a whispering voice echoes around the ballroom, whirling around it as a swarm of bats forms in the shadows under the ceiling, circling closer until my father finally materialises behind me. 

“You’re back early,” I tell him pointedly, “And you're spying.” 

The whole Castle and I can feel his presence so he must have suppressed it in order to approach unnoticed. 

“I achieved what I wanted to so I returned,” he says easily, releasing his power in a trickle as he approaches, “I like watching you.” 

I’m barefoot and in nothing but trousers for greatest ease of movement and his warm gaze rakes over me, taking in the smears of blood on my bare chest. 

“And I meant what I said about the soldiers. After all, that is why I have them captured and brought here for you.” 

“Half dead or half stunned...” 

I know why he does it and while I’ve fed from the Brotherhood soldiers in battle, drinking from one too weakened to defend itself seems wrong. 

Father’s eyes light up. 

“You require live prey?” he purrs, “Very well. That can be arranged.” 

“That is _not_ what I meant.” 

But perhaps it was, it’s hard to think now that he’s so close after hours of absence. The tendrils of his power are already forming a protective sphere around me and seeing his bare skin makes me want to touch it, his blood calling to his blood in me. 

“Come,” he murmurs, so quietly I instinctively step closer to hear him, “I have something to show you.” 

He bursts into bats and I follow suit, mine mingling with his, safe in the shadow of his power, and we fly over the newly repaired walkway to Overlook Tower. 

The air there is crisp and clear, completely free of the Cursed Blood. 

I know Father means Overlook Tower and its dependencies to become mine. Their isolation and the Toy Maker’s influence mean they would be protected from both the Castle and the City, should any threat come from either. 

Despite knowing that I can take and have taken care of myself for centuries, he is protective of me. It is not paternalism but paternal affection. He has never forgiven himself for not being there to shield and guide me when I needed him, perhaps he never will. And he is the Prince of Darkness, his powers so greatly outstrip mine that he may never see me as an equal - I have made my peace with that. 

We land near the Horn of Bromios and our eyes meet again. 

Young Trevor used the Horn to summon Dracula, it’s carrying bellow can be heard in even the furthest reaches of the domain. I will never need to do that. My bond with him is such that I need only feel a desire for him to sense it. And he would come. Wherever he was, whatever he was doing, he would come to me, just as he dropped everything for young Trevor. 

“It is safe here now,” Father tells me before dissolving into his swarm form again and taking us to the landing area outside the Theatre. 

It is still blanketed in eternal snow but there are flowering trees and shrubs - red and white camellias with dark glossy leaves, pale pink plum blossoms on dark boughs bowed under the weight of the snow. Crested, long-necked birds with feathers in jewel tones and cascading tails feeding on vipers in the open palm of a monumental winged garuda. 

“Poisonfeather birds,” Father explains when one of them caws at us, “Life is returning.” 

There are rusalkas in the waters around the Greenhouse, their delicate fins as beautiful as rainbows, and in the leaf-filtered penumbra of the Greenhouse we can just make out the stalking forms of dryads and naiads. 

Father is right. Life is returning to the Castle, old creatures and dark ones, seeking the shelter of Father’s growing powers. 

“What do you think?” he asks, watching me closely, “Do you like it?” 

His voice is quiet and nonchalant but there is banked fire in his gaze and his energy fluctuates around us in licks and flickers. 

“I like it.” 

There is a rush of his energy around us, so familiar and powerful I want to move into his arms and steep in it, but there’s a distance to him. 

“Zobek and the Acolytes have left a power vacuum in the City,” he says deliberately, “There are passages, from here into the City. Into their headquarters.” 

I’m too stunned to say anything. 

“It would be easy for you to move between the two dimensions,” he continues slowly. 

“You would let me go?” 

“So long as you came back,” he says evenly but his eyes glow a moment, “It would be safer for you to stay here.” 

Yes. If the Castle understands I do not mean to lure Father away it will not see me as a threat. Besides, this is my home now, I can feel it right to the depths of my bones. I have shed so much of my blood here and the Castle has accepted it as it does His. It had to. I am his blood. 

“You need not decide now.” 

His energy is already rippling around me and we swarm as one to fly back. 

The Guest House has been restored. The windows have been repaired and keep out the icy cold, the staircases are whole and sound and have thick carpets cascading down them, and the pillars and balconies are festooned with scarlet silk. Only the paints and gilding are still faded, they are bright enough as it is. 

The fountain at the center of the atrium spouts thermal water that fills the air with steam made fragrant by the flowers that now bloom and spill out of its basin. It is where I’ve bathed over the last few days but when I head towards it Father stops me. 

“Wait,” he says, going instead to the elevator, “The baths are ready.” 

The “No Wolves Allowed” sign is still there and I can’t help a sidelong look at Father, and the slight curl of his lips confirms he has it left there on purpose. 

From the elevator we step out into a monstrous cavern carved into the mountainside, structured by the continuation of the pillars in the atrium. The far end opens into a window framed by a huge, gaping, toothy mouth. Coloured lanterns are strung from one side of the grotto to the other and the overflow from the fountain above sings down long rain chains before falling in a shower of water into the center of the room. 

“Father…” I murmur in astonishment as I look around. 

One of several red wooden bridges like the ones leading to the Guest House take us through a terrace rock garden planted with dwarf bamboos, bonsai pines and camellia bushes to the largest of the three steaming pools, the central one. 

“No Childe of mine will bathe in a fountain day after day.” 

The heat of the water reminds me of how cold I am and I sink into it to my shoulders, soaking up as much as I can of it. Then I wade over to the window to look out into the garden beyond. It is not a window but a barrier, I can see the film of magic in it. 

“A blood sacrifice will lower it,” Father explains carelessly, coming up behind me. 

He cuts his wrist on the teeth of a bronze-cast serpentine dragon and his blood drips into the bowl it guards within its coils. 

The stone pool continues out into a snowy cliff-top garden of pine trees clipped so that their snow-laden branches look like clouds and frame a view of the Greenhouse. More stone lanterns punctuate the gloomy, steamy air and the gargoyles that line the rockface spout icy meltwater. 

Snow begins to fall. Not hard, biting snow crushed by driving winds but large, gentle flakes that get caught in my hair. 

“Come, son.” 

The barrier comes back down behind me and I settle by my father on a long sunken ledge. 

Layered onto the happy gurgle of the rain chains is that of the two twin fountains that release water into streams that burble through the rock garden before splashing into the pools, the excess swallowed up by grated mouths. Water runs and drips along the rough stone walls and the boughs of the willows that line them brush the ground, moved by invisible currents. They are lit from beneath by the light of more stone lanterns, and seating and day beds are hidden away under little kiosques that match the elevator. 

Father takes the carafe of blood bobbing in the water and when he fills his chalice from it, the scent of warm blood puffs into the air. 

He offers me the first sip, a corner of his mouth curled up into a challenge. 

Human blood. Spectral, but still human. From one of the Brotherhood soldiers he keeps trying to force down my throat. 

“I’ve already fed.” 

Father huffs in laughter and takes a long swallow that travels down his throat and into his broad chest. He catches me watching him and his eyes glow faintly. 

“And what will you do when there are no more possessed demons and minions left? The Castle will not take kindly to you feasting on my loyal servants.” 

He’s right, of course. I want to tell him that I could fast, as I did for centuries, but it would be a lie. I have been feeding from Father for days and as my vampire nature becomes stronger, so does my hunger. The Brotherhood soldiers are merely echoes of past battles, trapped in this dimension and able to capture just enough to the ambient energy to take on a physical form. My father’s power in them is discernible but too weak to be satisfying, especially when wrapped in a form that looks and smells human, and that wears the trappings of an Order I was once raised to serve. Only in the heat of battle do my survival instincts override my distaste of drinking from them in cold blood. And yet, they are the least worst option. 

Father is still watching me, amusement fanning the ember-glow of his eyes. 

“Or do you expect me to be your dairy cow?” 

I huff at him and fold myself onto his chest, shivering at the feel of his hand in my hair, his skin against mine, his blood in me yearning for his through the wafer-thin conceit of our skins. 

His other arm holds me close and his mouth is soon pressed against my temple, the tip of his tongue flicking over the skin before his lips rest there and he breathes in the scent of my blood throbbing through the vein. 

“As your father I want you to be happy and I will not force you to do anything against your will. But I want to see you thrive both as your father and your sire.” 

I know he is my sire, every mote of my being feels it, but thinking of him as such is still new. 

“I suppose you could continue to feed from me,” he finally murmurs, the low vibrations of his voice passing straight into my blood and carried by it throughout my body, setting every nerve tingling from root to tip. 

When I fought alongside Simon I was acting as a father protecting his son, and as a son wronged by his father. And it was the part of me that remained Trevor - still mindful of Gabriel Belmont’s redemption and our release from his cursed existence - that sought him out on that battlefield. Our relationship as father and son underwrote so much of our destiny, of our pasts and our history together, that I never thought of us as anything else until mere days ago. Until I drank from him again, after nearly one thousand years, I had not realised how strongly we are bonded. 

I am Alucard now. 

I’m not sure when it happened, exactly at which point I let go of Trevor, but it has happened. 

“Father, will you taste me to check if…?” 

It is a nakedly wanton request. Last time he said Satan’s poison was already so faint as to be almost indiscernible. 

But Father says nothing, though his eyes blaze and his heated gaze rakes over me. He has always indulged me. Even his ire on the battlefield after I’d made my request of him was not refusal. It was never refusal, only frustration at the unceasing demands made of him by yet another loved one. And now I wonder if he let Simon and I defeat him all those years ago simply because he couldn’t face killing me again. He knew I was his enemy and yet he never sought me out. 

“Come,” he murmurs, curling a hand around my neck and carefully drawing me closer. 

He takes his time, as always, pausing to breathe me in then rub his chin over my skin, the bristle on it rough against it, leaving it raw and sensitive for when he presses his warm lips to it. 

He wraps his other arm around me, sinking lower in the hot water. He always holds me securely for this, he knows how it unsettles me. 

I close my eyes and can sense the heat of him even before the points of his teeth touch my skin. They’re sharp as needles but the increase in pressure is so torturously incremental that I can feel the push of it until it breaks the surface tension of my skin and penetrates the flesh, sinking down to the vein. 

His gentleness is not natural, it is controlled. 

My skin fits me. My strengthened nature makes me more fluid within it, but I’m comfortably compassed within it. Father’s human form is just discipline, the outward manifestation of his desire to master himself. But his true form is Chaos, he cannot be contained. I can feel the perpetual motion in him, of a form always threatening to disband into multitudes and universes, held together only by focussed will. And his hunger is as fierce as his power 

He holds a moment then withdraws slowly, slightly, just enough for some of my lifeblood to spill out, wet against my skin. His tongue laves the stain then he suckles gently, coaxing the small wound into closing again. 

When I try to speak, my voice breaks into a whisper. 

“Well?” 

“It is finished,” he murmurs, nudging his nose against mine, his hand buried in my hair, “You are all mine now.”

His power tightens around me, I can feel it on my skin like a physical touch, trying to soak into me and make me part of him. 

“Will you feed, son?” 

“Please.” 

He offers me his wrist and I accept it demurely, curbing my hunger for it as I settle onto his chest to feed. Over the last few days I’ve made an effort to improve my technique, despite the haze of thirst that always comes over me. I watch Father as he watches me, his gaze scorching, soaking up the sight of every brush of my lips, every little lick, the way I try to imitate his care in my bite, but once I break into the vein I can’t help but close my eyes in anticipation at the taste of him bursting on my tongue, the potency of his power, the strength of everything he feels for me, burning and possessive, swirling inside me. 

Father drags a nail down my spine lightly. A nail so sharp that even the slightest pressure would split the skin, slice it open as cleanly as a scalpel. I know he would never hurt me - he barely pierces my skin to taste me - and yet part of me wants him to spill my blood onto his skin, to be absorbed into him. This part I still have no control over and I don’t know how long or how much I drink before I feel his heavy hand on my head. 

Drawing away and laying my head on his chest, still clutching his wrist and nuzzling it, I close my eyes, floating away on the sensation of his power flowing within me, displacing mine before melding with it. The smell of his blood is comforting and I lap absently at the healing wounds, fuzzy from the aftereffects. 

As I drift into sleep, I begin to slide off his chest into the water so he pulls me up, cradling me by his side, and as we watch the snow falling outside the window, a pack of white wolves wanders out from the nearby forest. The past few days I’ve heard their soothing howls on the wind but this is the first time I’ve seen them. 

“It suits you,” Father murmurs, “The cold and the snow. They suit your discipline and your temperament.” 

I put my hand on his chest and watch his gaze simmer down to fire under ice. 

He, by contrast, is unyielding as granite. Even his features seem rock-hewn. But those glowing eyes reveal the truth of him, how inside he is all fiery rage and molten anger, like the infernal forges and torture chambers of the City of the Damned, everything inside him simmering and roiling, bubbling up and bottled in until they burst forth in cataclysmic rage, in dragons of smoke and brimstone, or a blood-lash that can smite hundreds at a stroke, a hatred that could annihilate the world of men in an instant. 

Stifling a yawn, I lay my head back down against his shoulder. 

“What did you do today? You said you accomplished what you wanted to.” 

“I retrieved the Book. I will lock it into the Banquet Hall until the whole Castle is secured,” he explains, running his palm up and down my back slowly, “It has cleared the secrets and misunderstandings between us. It is precious to me.” 

One of the wolves wanders over to the cliffedge, facing the enormous moon hanging over the Greenhouse, and when it howls, the others join in. Then just as suddenly they stop and pad away into the darkness of the forest, as if into another dimension. 

“Father, did you mean it when you said I could work in the City?” 

“I did. If that is what you want.” 

I’ve spent decades trying to maintain the balance between good and evil in the world as the White Wolf or the White Vampire. It has been as much my life’s work as getting rid of Zobek and Satan was. 

“I do. Zobek and Satan were active evils but there is evil as well as good in every human heart and those with noxious intentions will rush to take their place. The weak and downtrodden will need as much protection as they ever did.” 

“I leave that to you. You have lived in the world, as Zobek did, you understand it.” 

Another pause. 

“I will come to you, to your City. It is time I reacquainted myself with the world of men.” 

I can feel the flutter of his power around me and I press a kiss onto his chest. 

“Thank you, father, for letting me have this.” 

“Perhaps this was our fate,” Father’s voice rumbles through his chest, “I always threatened to remake the world in my image. You are that image. My twice begotten son, made then remade in my image. I do not hold your beliefs in humanity but I have nothing against them, I will not thwart you. This domain is and always will be mine, I rule here. Any human who wanders into the Castle or its dependencies must face the consequences, but as long as the City and its inhabitants do not attack the Castle and I, I will leave them be.” 

He pauses but I know there’s more. 

“And you. I will protect you. Do not ask me not to.” 

Another hesitation that grows into silence until finally I raise my head to look at him. 

“What is it?” 

“Young Trevor… Was that you?” 

He sinks a hand into my hair when I nod faintly. 

“How much do you remember?” 

“All of it, I think. In the City, when we were physically close, I could consciously control him completely. But at the Castle…” I pause, biting my lip, “I could only watch. He was voiced by my subconsciousness.” 

“And mine,” Father adds slowly. 

I nod. The unsettled dust of old resentments and grievances, of misunderstandings and uncertainties. It hurt, seeing Father soak up accusations that he has felt guilt and atoned for. And seeing him so affectionate, so indulgent, so protective with young Trevor was like seeing into his soul again. 

“He said things that I didn’t-.” 

“He said nothing that he did not have the right to say, son.” 

Father’s gaze is scorching, he looks at me minutely, as if trying to make out traces of that child in me. 

“You looked so afraid at times,” he murmurs, his voice just a heat shimmer. 

“I was… Sometimes,” I confess, trying to quell a shiver at the memory, “I was worried that you wouldn’t remember. Or that you had changed your mind.” 

“No.” 

“No,” I echo. 

Father is still watching me like nothing else exists. 

I used to think him narrow but he contains universes and every single one of them loves me. 

He loves me as a father and as a sire, and simply as Dracula. Entire and devouring. It is obvious. Father cannot hide his feelings and rarely tries to, his eyes and the flavour of his power in the air give him away. Eyes that follow me even out of sight and a power whose curling tendrils are always reaching out for me, waiting to envelop me and absorb me into them as they do now. 

“You chose to stay, asking nothing, posing no conditions. I will never leave you, son.” 

I’ve known since I read the book and since I went into the Forbidden Wing and felt the disastrous anguish housed there. I’ve seen it in the way he behaved with young Trevor. 

Father has always needed to love and protect but those he loved - Mother, God, even Laura - have always used his love to ask things of him that would damn his soul and then abandoned him. 

I will not abandon him. 

“Yes, father. I know.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> <3


	3. His City

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dracula's PoV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Watched the Netflix series and had to comfort-write another chapter. There will probably be a fourth one for symmetry...  
> Enjoy!

**HIS CITY**

Swarming to Overlook Tower, I follow the scent of Alucard’s power to the Banquet Hall, which he has requisitioned as his study. The securest room in the Tower, since even here in this impregnable Castle, he will not leave his important papers anywhere else. 

No place where shadows exist is beyond my reach, however, and the Banqueting Hall’s defences are nothing to me as I seep into it and linger in a dark corner to watch Alucard a moment. 

He is working, again, poring over the papers spread over the largest of the dining tables, and he has forgotten to feed, yet again. 

I did not make my offer to let Alucard work in the City idly but he has made faster work of carving a place for himself than I’d expected. 

Once Satan’s corruption had left him, he again took up his disguise as Zobek’s lieutenant and returned to the City. By then both the Castle’s demonic creatures and infernal beasts unleashed by Satan’s Acolytes - now defeated - had stopped leaking into the City. Only those already there remained to be defeated and Alucard, along with the City’s military and law enforcement personnel, made short work of them. 

After slaying the last of the demons, he removed his helmet and revealed himself, conflating Zobek’s lieutenant and the White Vampire into one identity, Alucard. 

Seeing him so absorbed in those papers rouses a breath of jealousy in me but it is immediately consumed by my ever-burning pride in my son. 

Unable to resist the urge to reach out touch him, I gradually release my power and he rubs the back of his neck lightly, a quiver running through him. 

His gaze swings around the room and when it comes to rest on my corner, I detach myself from the shadow to go to him. 

“You’re spying again,” he accuses, wearing that faintly martyred air of his, as if the whole Castle - and everything and everyone in it - were not my eyes and my ears. 

“And you have brought your work home with you again. You haven’t even troubled to change.” 

Alucard reflexively smoothes a hand over his immaculate shirt. The topmost button is undone, the slate-dark suit jacket that usually covers it hangs off the back of a chair, and the rich mustard silk tie is undone, the gleam of it the same colour as Alucard’s eyes. 

“We don’t all live where we work,” he replies pointedly, turning back to his papers, pretending to not notice the hand I wrap around the back of his neck, where he touched it, though a tremor shakes him. 

He had read enough of the Lieutenant’s mind before killing him that stepping into his identity and his property was easy, and the White Vampire has a centuries-old reputation for good deeds. In the aftermath of the chaos and in the confusion still reigning, he was handed the reins of Zobek’s empire as per its statues almost without question. 

He has been working tirelessly since then to acquaint himself with its workings. 

“You still smell of the City.” 

Of Zobek. 

As I rub my thumb along his neck, I watch him rearrange the papers into loose groupings with careful deliberation. 

The sheer volume of paper is remarkable. They are covered in dense writings, columns of numbers and arcane charts, and as I watch Alucard’s intent gaze pass over them I’m reminded of a general before battle. 

Zobek did not unleash demonic hordes on the City, he did not possess any. Unlike Satan and I, he chose to live on the earthly plane and acquired power some other way. Not the sort of power that could have defeated either of us, but power over humans and their lives. Power that Alucard, who also lived among humans all this time, understands and knows how to wield. 

“Is this war?” 

Alucard looks at me in surprise and he smiles briefly, revealing his neat little fangs. 

“Yes. You could say that. We call this a hostile takeover.” 

He explains that he is inventorying the resources he has available to him now, to see whether he can acquire the corporations until recently controlled by the first two Acolytes, while they are vulnerable and the City is still in turmoil. 

“And you have all the information you need? We could find people from within these… corporations and ask them anything you want to know.” 

“You forget, Father, that the Castle has several accesses into the City. I did my own spywork.” 

He says this almost slyly, another raptorial smile flashing across his face. He is hungry, predatory, and gleeful. I’ve never seen him like this

“You are enjoying this.” 

He blinks at me. 

“I suppose I do,” he concedes, then shakes himself, “But I would have done it anyway.” 

“What will you do with these corporations? Destroy them?” 

Alucard turns back to the papers. 

“I considered it. Especially for the weapons manufacturing company,” he admits, touching the emblem - a double-headed eagle - at the head of one of the sheets, “But destroying the weapons of war does not bring an end to wars or prevent them. My competition for the acquisition will be the Bernhardt family.” 

The Bernhardts. Another cursed bloodline that deserves to become extinct. 

“Yes, those Bernhardts,” Alucard smiles sadly in answer to my snarl, “If I step away, they will simply take my place.” 

“And evil will prevail,” I finish for him. 

I had not expected to hear an echo of my own words to him. 

“It has become more difficult to tell good from evil.” 

He watches me, his face unreadable and unmoved as that of the sombre statues that guard mausoleums. 

This is his calling, the fate he has chosen for himself. 

I move closer to him, sinking my fingers into his hair. I can feel the loose silken strands slip between my fingers. 

“If I had chosen True Death, would you have followed me?” 

He hesitates, his golden eyes trained on me, pools of amber sunlight. 

They hold the truth of my fate more than the Mirror ever did. 

I glance at the papers that are so important to him. 

“Show me.” 

He watches me as I slip into mist, then nods and joins me. 

“We could open up a more direct access between the Castle and this tower,” he suggests when we finally reach Zobek’s tower via the usual convoluted route, “The elevator in the Guest House could go up another floor and come here.” 

“The elevator? You would create a portal to this world just one floor away from where you sleep?” 

He must be mad. 

“The Castle is impenetrable for outsiders now, Father, and Zobek put protections on this tower using his own powers, which nobody can use. It would be safe.” 

He has been safe so far, he has taken care of himself for centuries, and the City was never as big a threat to him as the Castle was. 

Time passes more slowly at the Castle and I was so busy there that I had not realised how long Alucard spends in the City. No wonder he always comes back stinking of it. 

“This floor is private. Nobody will disturb us here,” Alucard explains as he pushes open the door to a familiar room. 

The whole tower is steeped in power - the walls and floors are soaked in it, I can feel all the seals and wards throbbing with it. But it is Zobek’s power - now my power - and it does not answer to Alucard. Here he has to push open the doors like a mere mortal, like a human. 

I say nothing to this and look around the room. 

Despite the heat radiating up from the floor, the high, airy space of uncompromising lines and marbles feels too cold for my son. 

Out of habit, I raise my hand and a slight wave summons thick white furs onto the chairs and a scattering of woven carpets onto the floor. 

Alucard stares at me in surprise. 

I have Zobek’s powers at my fingertips but I can also draw on the endless supply of dark energy that floods the City’s foundations. 

Leaving Alucard to his thoughts, I go to study one of the statuettes on display. 

“You haven’t changed anything.” 

He joins me, standing close enough to be warmed by my aura. 

“They are representations of Old Gods.” 

I can feel myself twist into a snarl. 

“Trophies.” 

“Memorials,” Alucard says gently, leaning into me until I put an arm around him. 

Yes. Memorials. Like the face of an Old God carved into the living wood of the Greenhouse. 

“I have seen enough.” 

Alucard looks startled and even a little worried so I try to contain myself and continue more gently, wrapping him up in my power. 

“I will come again, another time. For now let’s go home. You still need to feed.” 

When we finally return to the Guest House we go straight to the baths, as is our custom, and soon we’re stretched out in the steaming water, Alucard laid out on top of me. 

This is how he likes to rest, with his face pressed into the crook of my neck, near the pulse of my warm blood as it travels through the veins and arteries in my throat. 

Tomorrow, after he rises, he’ll train and perhaps even feed on the Brotherhood soldiers my minions will serve him, but after work he’s always so preoccupied with his City business that he forgets his own needs, allowing himself to go hungry and cold. 

Once he is warm and comfortable, I will feed him. 

Alucard’s silken strands slide between my fingers, cool and soft, full of his scent of hoarfrost and snuffed candle smoke. He has already dozed off. 

He was right to ask about a portal. The Castle is his home but the City is his life and I want him to be able to come and go between them freely. 

The necessity to secure the Castle - for Alucard’s own safety foremost - has consumed me over the last few days and that turned into the business of reversing the disrepair and resentments of half a millenium of neglect. I was so focussed on the task that I did not notice that my equally single-minded son is wearing himself out, as is his custom. 

My energy levels have been restored almost to their previous levels and their reserves are inexhaustible. I forget that Alucard’s are not. 

At the distance of a millenium, the age distance between us has become negligible - both as vampires and as humans. The difference between us is not a question of age. He has not directly absorbed the essence of powerful beings, his development has been stunted by a slow rebirth and constant starvation. Perhaps I should have fed him more when I turned him but even now I feel revulsion at the thought of forcing more blood between those dead lips. 

It is likely that he will always be like this and that his powers will be limited and finite. 

On our way back to the Castle we passed the alcove that houses Zobek’s portal, the one that could take Alucard anywhere and that he cannot use. He is right in saying there are seals and wards protecting the towers - there are, and many - I could feel the throbbing signature of Zobek’s power from them. They protect the tower but they do not protect Alucard. He can neither adjust nor remove them. He could not defend himself if they one day turned against me, as my Castle did. 

But I could cede Zobek’s power to Alucard. 

I will not feel its loss any more than I felt its acquisition. Some of the form of Zobek’s power has already been absorbed into mine - like reshaping a key to fit an additional lock - but I could transfer the bulk of it to Alucard so he could have full control over the City tower he inhabits, at least, and everything else he has inherited from Zobek and his lieutenant. 

It would make him stronger and I doubt it would damage him. Satan’s corruption weakened him but that was just a stain on his essence and a few days were enough to clear it. Even now that he feeds daily from me he seems impervious to the corrosive darkness of my power, and Zobek was never as powerful as either Satan or I. Alucard’s soul is incorruptible. 

We will discuss it once he has fed. 

A chorus of howls on the wind and Alucard stirs, turning to look. 

“Will you feed?” 

Alucard says nothing but accepts my wrist primly and settles onto my chest with it. 

He enjoys my blood and I like him to drink it. There is the pleasure of it, of course, unequalled by any other I’ve experienced though I’ve gorged myself on every one I could think of in my attempt to forget, but I also know it keeps Alucard strong and it makes it harder for the Castle to disobey him or mutiny against him - against us - as it did. 

As always, Alucard watches me as he rubs his cheek against the inside of my wrist and kisses it lightly, holding off the moment when he will bite and take, delaying gratification. 

When he first confronted me alongside Simon, Alucard was a creature consumed by rage and the shock of having woken as the very evil he’d sought to destroy. In that encounter I called him “Alucard” out of spite and challenged him to feed on his anger as I had on mine. But by the time he returned to me on the battlefield he had reverted back to his true self, as cool and disciplined as had had been as Trevor.

He has improved his technique with the single-minded dedication typical to him and takes pleasure in exerting this control over himself. He still lives in his body. 

He catches my skin between the points of his teeth, holding it without breaking it. This is his way of reminding us both that he does not need to drink. He had gone without for most of his life and could again. 

He feeds from me because he chooses to, because he wants to, and because we both enjoy it. His enjoyment is visible in the way his golden eyes close in a slow blink as his fangs finally pierce through, then open again to watch me intently as he starts to draw my lifeblood into his mouth, lapping slowly, barely visible swallows carrying it into him. No pain, just a dull, pleasant numbness beneath his lips, dwindling away and sinking deep until it runs like a silken thread of bright, icy pleasure through my nerves, setting my power crackling along it. 

He’s a fastidious eater but the bathing and feeding have become a ritual. They are a reminder that we chose to stay together and after his near-revelation tonight, it feels even more intimate. 

His gaze is becoming hazy but his grip on my arm is tight. He was suckling more insistently but he’s careful not to overeat as he did those first few days and he soon gives my wrist a few rasping licks to encourage the wounds to heal. He doesn’t release it and instead lays his head onto my open palm, blinking slowly as he looks up at me. 

Soon enough he has to stifle a yawn and catch himself from slipping into the water. 

“Have you given more thought to that elevator portal?” 

“No.” 

Alucard huffs and tucks himself back into his spot at my throat. Soon his whole body loosens, almost shifting out of its human form. 

He was alone for so long, he’s become so self-reliant. He only feels completely safe in these moments, with my blood within him and my power surrounding him. I can feel it in the timbre of his energy, in the way he lets himself go. 

I stroke a hand up and down his back and he melts like snow at my touch. I must be careful with him while he’s in this state, dazed with sated bloodlust and closer to his vampire nature. He once began to unravel into mist and would have dissolved into the water if I hadn’t caught him with my own power. 

Ever since I’ve always wrapped him tightly in my power. Even now I can feel it, dense in the air, sink and settle into the hollow of his spine, pool into the hollow of every pore, trying to soak into him wherever it can. 

I would like to keep him this way always, always cocooned in my power. 

But I cannot be his shield at all times so I must armour him as best I can. 

Bringing my freshly-healed wrist to my mouth, I reopen the wounds and deepen them, and when the scent of my blood, hot and potent, blooms in the air, carried by the fragrant steam, Alucard twitches awake. 

“All is well, son.” 

He settles back down and shivers when he feels my blood drip onto his skin, splattering over his shoulder blades, running into the valley of his spine then pooling into the small of his back, dark as a deep lake against his pallor. 

With the very tip of one sharp nail, I draw a protective seal into his skin, cutting only deeply enough to call up a few drops of blood, painstakingly drawing each protective sigil. 

Alucard waits, motionless and silent. He must know, by now, what it is I’m doing. 

When I’ve finished I dip my fingertips into the cooling blood and brush if over his skin, again and again, watching it sink into the shallow groove and mingle with his, sealing the protective spell. 

Finally the last drops are absorbed into his body and as I lay my hand on his head he presses a kiss against my skin. 

“I love you, Father.” 

“I love you, Son.” 


End file.
